Chucking random flowers seeds about on the raised beds and throwing away the packets was not such a good idea. Now I've got some green appearing and I don't know what it is, weeds or flowers. I have identified the rogue potato and nettles making an appearance and pulled them out, but as for the rest, I haven't a clue. I know there were some herb seeds in there as well, but not being familiar with herbs, I don't know which are edible and which aren't. best leave them to see what develops. It's all a bit of a mystery.

I have managed to add a bit of colour while waiting for flowers to appear. Plastic flowers look fine to me, and they were free, foraged from rubbish bins which would have gone to landfill.

I have flowers but the tall ones have had a battering in the wind. Not sure what some of them are called, but not bothered. My brain won't cope with all those fancy names. I can see some poppies. Looking quite nice.Ilona

My poppies have almost died off now and I have a lot of floppy foliage and seed heads. it looks messy, can I pull them up or do I have to wait to collect the seeds. Or can I pull them up and leave the seed heads to dry anyway? I am new at this flower growing.

I have a good show of fuschias they were £2 each from aldiddly. All done well.Ilona

Meanqueen wrote:Chucking random flowers seeds about on the raised beds and throwing away the packets was not such a good idea. Now I've got some green appearing and I don't know what it is, weeds or flowers. Ilona

First year here we brought three packs of strawberry seeds and threw them in their own bed, our neighbour can across as they were growing and and indicated much to our disgust that we should pull them up and throw them away, we ignored him and let them grow, all we got was a bed full of Bulgarian wild grass! So much for packet seeds!!

Also shows how much we knew at the time, still learning and getting things wrong!!

But back to poppies....We harvest our poppy seeds when the heads turn from green to a brown colour or when the the pods start to open right below crown, we cut them off give them a shake over a piece of paper and store the seeds for the next year.

To save seed, the pod ought to be going from fleshy green to brown before cutting off. A recommendation is to pop the seed head (head down) into a paper bag so that when the pods dry out completely, the seeds naturally fall out into the bag.